March 13, 2015

The Grown Ups by Robin Antalek is a coming
of age story about three characters who start off as teenagers in the story and
become grown-ups. See how their relationships change, the type of people they
grow up to be, and much more.

Book
Description

“From the author ofThe Summer We Fell Apart,an
evocative and emotionally resonant coming-of-age novel involving three friends
that explores what it means to be happy, what it means to grow up, and how
difficult it is to do both together.

The summer he’s fifteen, Sam
enjoys, for a few secret months, the unexpected attention of Suzie Epstein. For
reasons Sam doesn’t entirely understand, he and Suzie keep their budding
relationship hidden from their close knit group of friends. But as the summer
ends, Sam’s world unexpectedly shatters twice: Suzie’s parents are moving to a new
city to save their marriage, and his own mother has suddenly left the house,
leaving Sam’s father alone to raise two sons.

Watching as her parents’
marital troubles escalate, Suzie takes on the responsibility of raising her two
younger brothers and plans an early escape to college and independence. Though
she thinks of Sam, she deeply misses her closest friend Bella, but makes no
attempt to reconnect, embarrassed by the destructive wake of her parents as
they left the only place Suzie called home. Years later, a chance meeting with
Sam’s older brother will reunite her with both Sam and Bella—and force her to
confront her past and her friends.

After losing Suzie, Bella
finds her first real love in Sam. But Sam’s inability to commit to her or even
his own future eventually drives them apart. In contrast, Bella’s old friend
Suzie—and Sam’s older brother, Michael—seem to have worked it all out, leaving
Bella to wonder where she went wrong.

Spanning over a decade, told
in alternating voices,The Grown Upsexplores the indelible bonds between
friends and family and the challenges that threaten to divide them.” – The Grown Ups

My Thoughts

The Grown
Ups spans over a decade and alternates between characters. For some
readers, this may not be enjoyable because this method of storytelling isn’t
for everyone. However, I think that the author did a very good job with the
time spanned out to convey the message of the story. She also alternated
between characters in a seamless way, which not all authors who do this can do
well. I applaud her use of this because it does tell the story in a way that
only seeing it through one of the characters just couldn’t do.

This is a well told coming of age story that takes
teenagers into adulthood, and shows how relationships can fall apart, and some
grow stronger. Growing up isn’t just about blowing out candles on your birthday
each year, but the events and emotional growth that occurs in-between. This
story shows just how true that is. It isn’t overly dramatic or too far-fetched
to make the story unrealistic, which makes it that much more interesting, at
least for me. The characters were well formed, and Sam, Suzie, and Bella each
seemed like they could be people we could know in real life, or perhaps even
recognize some aspects of their lives in our own.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this novel and look
forward to seeing more of what the author writes. I definitely recommend it for
anyone looking for a good read.

* Thank you
to the publisher of The Grown Ups, William
Morrow, for providing me with a copy of this book for review. All opinions
expressed are my own.

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